176 e lusive v ictories
percentage would increase until by the end of the war the United States
contributed approximately two-thirds of the Anglo-American troops
fi ghting in Germany. As for the British role in northwest Europe, it
would be limited as its manpower began to decline during the
Normandy campaign—the price paid for pursuing campaigns designed
to wear down German strength around the periphery of Europe. Th e
president also stood behind Marshall’s demand to make available seven
American divisions that had been fi ghting in Italy for use in France. B y
stripping troops from Italy and rejecting further ventures in the Medi-
terranean, he also denied the British, especially Churchill, the prestige
they desperately wanted of leading a major campaign at the close of the
war. Henceforth Italy would be a backwater, where Allied advances
(and heavy casualties) after mid-1944 did little to bring on German
defeat.
Having made the pivotal decision of the war in the European theater,
Roosevelt receded into the background. He did not intervene directly
in the conduct of the invasion or the subsequent campaign across
France to the German border in summer and fall 1944. To Marshall
and Eisenhower he left the operational choices (whether to advance on
a broad front or, as the British preferred, in a single thrust), but the
defeat of Germany became a matter of time once the Allies gained a
foothold in Normandy. Nor did he interfere in the relentless strategic
bombing campaign that laid waste German industries and cities. Only
on rare occasions, such as the ill-fated raid on the Ploesti, Rumania, oil
facilities in 1943, did he involve himself directly. In the last year of his
life, Roosevelt focused his attention in Europe not on military matters
but on the postwar settlement, an appropriate concern for a political
leader.
By contrast with the deliberate approach Allied strategists adopted in
the war against the Th ird Reich, the struggle with Japan forced the
American military to respond to events and seize opportunities as they
appeared. Here, too, Roosevelt initially played an active role. He
supported the morale-lifting Doolittle Raid in April 1942. When the
Japanese responded with a strike aimed at Midway, the stage was set for
Nimitz to direct the pivotal American naval victory. King saw this as
the moment to begin his own limited counteroff ensive by U.S. Marines
in the Solomon Islands, again with the president’s backing.